Boomer believes the Giants’ surprising success last season actually hurt the organization in the long run, as it led them to stick with players who were pillars of last year’s group, rather than executing an all-out rebuild that likely would have been better for the team’s long-term plans.
“That success last year, unfortunately, gave us all false hope for what this season was going to be, and quite frankly, to me, kind of stopped their rebuild,” Boomer said. “Sometimes things need to get so bad that you know a rebuild is required, and you have to make trades and get rid of players…once you assess what the situation is, you can say ‘Enough. We’re not going anywhere, we need to change things, we need to change the quarterback,’ all of those things.”
Instead, the Giants made the playoffs, even winning a postseason game on the road, and signed Daniel Jones to a four-year deal, adding pieces like Darren Waller and Bobby Okereke in an attempt to make another playoff run. For Boomer, it was a familiar strategy by a new regime that has been all-too familiar over the years.
“The Giants have been mired in this since I’ve been here,” Boomer said. “They hang on to players when they shouldn’t. Players have either reached the end or are not who they think they are, and they give them bigger contracts, which ties them to the team. When those players don’t live up to those contracts, it hampers the team with their rebuild.
“If they didn’t have last year’s success, and could have torn the whole thing down…that kind of stalled a rebuild. Instead of a rebuild, it’s kind of like a retooling. The ‘competitive rebuild’ hasn’t worked out, and they’ve given money to players who unfortunately…they gave Dexter Lawrence big money, Leonard Williams is making big money, Daniel Jones got big money.”